Afghanistan Crisis

[Ad Lib]

17 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

With just about every anti Taliban group in Afghanistan deciding it's better to deal with them than fight yet another extended war, it seems a bit arrogant for outsiders to claim a hundred year war would be preferable.

Gosh, I wonder what it is about the prospect of being brutally beheaded and having their communities raped and pillaged, with no prospect of being protected by outside troops, that has influenced their decision.

[Tight minge]

6 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

Forced marriage (note, plenty of cultures distinguish between forced and arranged marriage) is never acceptable. All marriages in which the parties involved do not independently consent for themselves, free from coercion, are unacceptable, regardless of the "values" of a society.

It starts from the position that an adult woman does not have agency over her own body. In that context, that society is not one that is "chosen" but one that is imposed on her.

When choosing between the range of societies that are imposed on people, we should always prioritise those that honour the basics of human agency. Especially, not despite, when the majority or the powerful in that society want it to be otherwise.

So that kind of puts the husband/male guardian in the ‘vague’ zone, what about the other points?

 

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

Some people considered World War 2 to be unjust or unnecessary. I'm glad my great grandfathers and tens of millions of others like him didn't.

Ok boomer.  So you'd shoot someone if the State ordered you to, even if you considered it immoral?

[Savage Henry]

9 minutes ago, 101 said:

Anyone watch Trump discuss the withdrawal which was broadcast on Fox?

It sounded like he was prepared to nuke them if they had done what they have done, which I'm sure would have calmed it all down.

This’ll be Trump the non interventionist pacifist.  

[Ad Lib]

4 minutes ago, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

So that kind of puts the husband/male guardian in the ‘vague’ zone, what about the other points?

 

No it doesn't put it in the "vague" zone.

Forced marriages are ones where the woman does not consent. If a male guardian purports to give consent on behalf of a woman or girl, or applies pressure on her to communicate consent to a marriage, it is a forced marriage.

This addresses your subsequent points.

As for your question about separation of men and women in terms of public facing roles in society, I also consider that to be unacceptable.

It is clearly less severely objectionable than forced marriage and rape, but it is still barbaric.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Ad Lib

[Ad Lib]

11 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Ok boomer.  So you'd shoot someone if the State ordered you to, even if you considered it immoral?

It depends on the context. If I went into the office tomorrow and was instructed to shoot a civilian, clearly I wouldn't do that.

If I was conscripted into the army, and was engaged in combat operations and was instructed to shoot someone in the course of those operations, as long as that person was not a civilian or the context was not one such that I would be committing a war crime, I would do as I was told.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Ad Lib

[Zetterlund]

It's almost as if people are completely ignoring that the whole Syrian 'civil war' was contrived and planned before it even started. Honestly it's incredible that people still buy into the official narrative of these military adventures after so many wars based on lies.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/aug/30/syria-chemical-attack-war-intervention-oil-gas-energy-pipelines

The inconvenient fact about the chemical weapon attack in Ghouta in 2013 which nearly kicked everything off before Obama "bottled it", was that he did so after being advised that the intelligence pointing to government forces being responsible was not strong. I believe the words used were "not a slam dunk". Many of the later alleged chemical weapon attacks were also extremely questionable, which is an understatement.

This doesn't in any way mean Assad is a great lad, but it does show that the stated reasons for wanting rid of him were bullshit, and that the western powers would prefer a hardline religious, head-chopping client state over his relatively free and secular society. It also casts serious suspicion on any claims of humanitarian motivations for further interventions of this type. Which really, really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at this point.

[101]

 

Ordinarily Raabs position would be untenable but we have seen the entire "rule book" thrown out the window with probably the worst cabinet ever to take office.

They are all largely terrible operators which makes them being hung onto even stranger.

[hk blues]

12 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Ok boomer.  So you'd shoot someone if the State ordered you to, even if you considered it immoral?

[Tight minge]

5 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

No it doesn't put it in the "vague" zone.

Forced marriages are ones where the woman does not consent. If a male guardian purports to give consent on behalf of a woman or girl, or applies pressure on her to communicate consent to a marriage, it is a forced marriage.

This addresses your subsequent points.

As for your question about separation of men and women in terms of public facing roles in society, I also consider that to be unacceptable.

It is clearly less severely objectionable than forced marriage and rape, but it is still barbaric.

Thats fair, but then you are not putting a foreign military force in place for the benefit of the local people. Your putting it in place to enforce your own beliefs on a population that doesn’t generally care for these beliefs at this point. 

I do not say your intentions are not good and true; women should equal, but you cannot easily change this way of thinking/life.

If it were that simple, the Taliban would not have been able to breeze back in.

 

 

 

 

[Ad Lib]

Just now, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

Thats fair, but then you are not putting a foreign military force in place for the benefit of the local people. Your putting it in place to enforce your own beliefs on a population that doesn’t generally care for these beliefs at this point. 

I don't care if the local people think a father should get to decide that his daughter is to marry someone. That is barbaric, illegitimate, and to be resisted. It is not acceptable no matter how much "cultural context" you apply to it.

Just now, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

I do not say your intentions are not good and true; women should equal, but you cannot easily change this way of thinking/life.

My point is you don't need to change "this way of thinking" to stop, or significantly reduce the instances of, forced marriage. It is a moral good to prevent as many of them as possible from happening even if 99.99% of Afghans fervently believe they should be allowed.

[welshbairn]

We obviously need to keep bombing these people until they mend their antiquated ways.

[Ad Lib]

Just now, welshbairn said:

We obviously need to keep bombing these people until they mend their antiquated ways.

I vote we start with Grangemouth and Inverness.

[doulikefish]

Living in London has turned Libby into John Rambo 

[LongTimeLurker]

22 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

...Assad is not in any way, shape or form, the best of a bad lot.

What do you think is the better option that has a credible chance of actually happening? From what I've ever been able to make out Assad's regime has only survived this long because it has massive popular support from various non-Sunni minorities in both Syria and Lebanon and from the urban secular portion of the Syrian population derived from the assessment that he was the least bad option for them. Even the Kurdish forces that the Americans backed have never outright broken off relations with the Assad regime for that sort of reason.

[Tight minge]

1 minute ago, Ad Lib said:

I don't care if the local people think a father should get to decide that his daughter is to marry someone. That is barbaric, illegitimate, and to be resisted. It is not acceptable no matter how much "cultural context" you apply to it.

My point is you don't need to change "this way of thinking" to stop, or significantly reduce the instances of, forced marriage. It is a moral good to prevent as many of them as possible from happening even if 99.99% of Afghans fervently believe they should be allowed.

Therefore you are forcing your belief (whether right or wrong) on people and you expect to succeed (with a military force to back you)?

Sorry, but you are completely deluded in your thinking. 

You were advocating before to @Left Back about not imposing western democracy, but you want to cherry pick the rights and beliefs you deem acceptable by a western standard.

You are as well have an invasion force and send in the missionaries to knock sense into these backwards people?

What you want is certainly worthy, but they are many milestones to achieve along the way.

 

 

 

[The Moonster]

Just now, Ad Lib said:

Because I'm not a draft dodger. If the democratically elected government of this country considers it necessary to conscript from the adult population, it would be unreasonable for a comfortably-off middle class man in his 30s, even a very unfit one with poor vision and hearing, to refuse to serve in some capacity. To adopt any other position would be hypocrisy on my part, and in all that I do I try not to be a hypocrite. If nation-wide military solidarity is what our democracy demands, I will follow that.

One can absolutely protest in the political sphere that a draft was unwarranted and unnecessary, but that doesn't mean one wouldn't serve.

It just doesn't make much sense to me. You have quite a strong moral feeling on whether or not we should still have a military presence in Afghanistan, surely if you were being asked to go into that area or another area which you strongly felt would destabilise or make things worse then morally you'd be wrong to go if asked? Does "democracy" trump any moral value you hold?

I'd take jail over joining the army if I felt the war wasn't worthy of my life - society/democracy doesn't determine that for me, I make that choice myself. 

[WhiteRoseKillie]

2 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

He literally described a situation in which I'd be conscripted.

He (I assume you mean me) absolutely fucking didn't. Unless you are a relative of a sitting MP, that is.

[welshbairn]

Interesting article from 2010 on the British efforts in Helmand, mainly the non military stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/19/afghanistan-aid-programme-taliban

[Left Back]

15 minutes ago, Ad Lib said:

I don't care if the local people think a father should get to decide that his daughter is to marry someone. That is barbaric, illegitimate, and to be resisted. It is not acceptable no matter how much "cultural context" you apply to it.

My point is you don't need to change "this way of thinking" to stop, or significantly reduce the instances of, forced marriage. It is a moral good to prevent as many of them as possible from happening even if 99.99% of Afghans fervently believe they should be allowed.

Where do you draw the line?  which other western cultural norms should be enforced round the world because we deem it will give people a better life?  Who decides what is morally good and what isn't?  Public executions are acceptable in some countries.  Most people in the west would deem them barbaric.  Capital punishment as a whole actually is repugnant to most western societies and has been outlawed.  Should we be saddling up and enforcing those values in countries where it is acceptable (where we can win of course)?

On the flip side if something from another culture is deemed "better" than our norm does that get enforced on us?